Fatal Conceit

It’s been a few days since I was labeled a threat who would shoot a fellow blogger in the back. I thought most of the “kill them all” rhetoric had died down.

But a question had been raised, I believe honestly, that prompted another “kill the communists” post. The question “what direction?” did not get a satisfactory answer.

Since the focus has been on collectivism / communism, let’s review some numbers.

General statistics on welfare in the US indicates 25% of the population receives some form of transfer payment. Your government has promised some $19 Trillion in Social Security benefits and $30 Trillion in Medicare benefits. This roughly amounts to a $1 Million liability per Taxpayer in a pool of potential Taxpayers whose total assets are less than $500 Thousand per Citizen. (reference: USDEBTCLOCK.ORG)

From this finance lesson, let’s return to the “kill the communists” rhetoric. One out of every 4 people in your community are voluntarily recipients of stolen goods, or eagerly awaiting delivery of future stolen goods. Roughly 70 million people would have to be murdered to “kill the communists”.

Don’t have the stomach to move through your neighborhood and kill every 4th person? Not sure which of the four is deserving of a lethal sentence? Good, neither do I.

Our first conceit is a belief that we have properly identified our enemy: communists. It feels right. The first three planks in the communist manifesto attack private property, institute heavy taxation, and abolish inherited wealth.

But what is a communist? Merely a person who has not starved to death because you and I have fed him with the surplus from our commerce. A communist cannot harm you unless he directly threatens you with violence, and under common-law you are justified in responding with unorganized individual violence. A group of communists cannot harm you unless they employ a government to threaten violence to coerce you to submit to their will.

Let us clearly identify the enemy. The enemy is any attack on private wealth and private property. As I indicated previously, neither the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights speak to any protection for private wealth and private property. You cannot run there for help.

Governments, specifically the men that run them, work hard to make us submit to their will. Long before FDR and LBJ accelerated the adoption of naked communism within the United States, the 16th Amendment legalized theft of a portion of every-man’s paycheck. Lincoln killed 650,000 people to make the southern State submit to his will. And before that, state and local governments extorted property taxes to disburse “for public purposes”. Governments have coerced men to submit their persons and property to the will of others from the beginning of time.

A second conceit is that we, as partisans, can become cohesive enough to conduct meaningful, coordinated action against the leviathan of collectivist government. I believe this needs no comment.

So what useful direction can be given to Patriots faced with thieving governments and freeloading neighbors, who steal and consume our surplus? The simple choice appears to be binary: cut the head off the snake, or remove the tip of the spear.

I don’t recommend an attempt to remove the head of the snake. The engine of evil will remain in place, operating on inertia, until the next bureaucrat is selected to run the machine.

I favor an uncoordinated effort to remove the tip of the spear. Direct your individual ingenuity and energy into disrupting, at a local level, the theft of wealth by your various governments and their engines of re-distribution. The question is how?

This can take many forms dependent upon your courage and risk tolerance. Disrupt local town and city council discussions on topics of taxation and benefits. If you have the technical skills, disrupt local processes and systems of tax collection, disbursement, and the downward flow of funds from FedGov to local agencies. If you have the fortitude, infiltrate the agencies and conduct subtle sabotage from within. Finally, disrupt the personal lives of the employees who work in the agencies that run these functions.

Be creative in your escalation, but stay focused. The objective is to convince government managers and employees, at the operational level, to reconsider the morality of their chosen profession. Motivate them to seek honest employment in the private sector. If you are successful there will be consequences. Governments have agents with guns who will be directed to stop you, cage you, or worse.

The systemic theft we’re accustomed to cannot continue without the serfs who collect, count and re-distribute the coin. There are not enough enforcers on the payroll of municipal police to go door to door and threaten people directly for payment in the absence of a functional bureaucracy and its automated systems.

Others among you must simultaneously communicate the Fatal Conceit of socialism / communism / collectivism to your neighbors. That Fatal Conceit is the belief that rational man can use his intellect, along with tribal-level concepts of compassion, to replace the market-order that evolved through millennia of human experimentation. That Fatal Conceit which makes man hope he can engineer a centrally planned economy that doesn’t collapse and kill tens of millions he claims to help.

Expose the economic error of socialism: that the extended order necessary to feed, cloth, and otherwise maintain civilization cannot survive in in a centrally planned economy with managed markets. Explain how the extended order of modern civilization requires free markets and private property to deliver widespread prosperity.

To become prepared to do these tasks, read “Fatal Conceit”, by F.A.Hayek. It was the final work of a Nobel prize winning economist who earlier wrote “The Road to Serfdom”, sounding an alarm regarding state control of production and the relationship between socialism and totalitarianism.

Finally, recognize that reliance on tribe for organization, family values, and a desire for geo-political balkanization by the Patriot movement will likely inflict the same damage to the thin veneer of civilization as the central plan of the collectivists. To a lesser degree, perhaps, if trade across geographically dispersed free markets is actively encouraged and an absolute respect for private property is maintained.

Actions recommended above will remove the tip from the spear. As a consequence local, state, and even national government will probably collapse. If you elect to pursue this course, consider how you will provide short term compassionate care for neighbors whose welfare safety net has been removed.

In the interim, while you contemplate your resolve, reflect upon the fact that at no time in history has Freedom or Rightful Liberty prevailed on a significant scale; other than on the frontier at the boundary of civilization … and no such frontiers exist today.

You might want to consider how to live as free as possible in this un-free world. For that exercise I would recommend a book by Harry Browne “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”. An excellent summary can be found here .

16 Responses to Fatal Conceit

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

“Why True Advocates For Liberty Focus So Strongly On The Power of Ideas”

Ballot initiative -- Ballotpedia
[Search domain ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative] https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_initiative
The ballot initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can bring about a public vote on a proposed statute or constitutional amendment. Ballot initiatives are also called, depending on the state, popular initiative, voter initiative, citizen initiative or, simply, initiative.

Hans
kill them all has not slowed down,
nervous anxiety, seems to be the continuous theme. keep everyone feeling and acting like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.
We are individuals, this is the way God looks at us, perhaps we would do well to follow His lead, His Sons lead? Start looking at the people around us, do you see what He sees? Do you sense or feel the possible coming loss?
We do seem to reside in an unfree world, a false world complete with a delusion of freedom. i do believe we can come to terms with this.

For the past decade I’ve been looking for clues of how to do this and communicate in a way that makes sense to a secular mind with a corrupted world-view. I see that group as contributing the most to our issues.

But over the last couple of years I find many who argue from faith are unable to express meaningful solutions to problems of the physical reality in which we live our lives.

We all, I assume, anticipate eternity in the presence of God. But most, I believe, would prefer to meet Him later rather than sooner.

If you have specific suggestions on ways to “come to terms” that would be equally compelling to the secular humanists and collectivists, this is the time and place to express them clearly.

i believe we are to meet Him sooner rather than later, this will help us get through this.
This is a race of endurance and it would seem many are running a hare scramble, a dash.
The world is a pressure cooker, letting out a little steam without blowing is key.
Just left a article at WRSA see how the first few hate filled name calling replies sets the tone? Blind hatred clouds the Truth.https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/the-point-of-it-all/#comments

In General, I agree with much of the discussion. I am one of those 25% in the first paragraphs of this post. I would like to point out that from the age of 16 years, I paid into the Soc. Sec. System and in the last years of my life paid the maximum. This is NOT a gift from D.C. but an insufficient return on the TAX imposed by FDR. I will NEVER get back all that I, and my employers, put into the system has forced me, and others, to pay against our will. The “Divide and Conquer” approach that is in place is working. We need to get back to being “neighbors” and not coexistent people on our block/mile. Please get the statistics correct, however.

Perhaps it is the way the “25%” is stated in the beginning of the article. It might be useful to communicate (to me at least) in a way that separates those that are getting benefits from a system into which I paid through force from those of us that will never get the benefit of the payments we made. The Elected officials HIDE behind the BUDGET definition by saying they MUST spend the money they possess by law not put the S.S. funds into a fund for those that have participated. Sorry if I sounded as though I was attacking you.

Ex -- no apology required … I’m not concerned or offended … this is an adult play space

Whether one receives a benefit from a coercive system / institution has no bearing on the morality of the system. Theft of private wealth / property is immoral whether or not one is paid a benefit from the taking.

FYI -- I submitted, under threat of violence, to the periodic and systematic theft from the time LBJ signed legislation for the social programs of his Great Society. It’s just tribute paid to a Feudal Lord. I never expected to realize a dime, and I’m ashamed to be a recipient of Social Security and Medicare where my “benefit” is paid by continued theft.. My rationalization? Acceptance of my dole will accelerate the collapse of the system. If I and others were to refuse payment, the pain on current wage earners would be reduced and the system life prolonged.

Good points. Good discussion. And nothing tangible is accomplished to regain our freedom. Even if we did succeed, how long before we are in servitude again unless we become moral men and women? One man can make a difference but one man cannot succeed.

While we are talking:

1. War and rumors of war: Iran is close to precipitating WW III.
2. Economic collapse: Deutsche Bank’s $49 trillion derivative exposure may be the final straw.
3. CW II: As the Democrat Party’s Communist plan is exposed, they will divide and destroy the country as the means to gain power.
4. As Hans points out, our national debt shows how the government has enslaved us. Do you ever consider where this money went?
5. Do 25 jumping jacks. It will be more positive than herding cats.

Hans,

Thank you for this article. I will be at the community center today playing on the range.

I was challenged by the sabre-rattlers, who seem to dominate posts recently on NCRenegade, to participate in a discussion.

This essay presented an approach that can be implemented, by an uncoordinated collection of moral individuals, to cripple the system that supports our oligarchs.

The sabre-rattlers have not participated. This speaks directly to the sincerity of their prior comments, and raises serious questions regarding their real motives.

I spent several weeks of evenings last summer preparing the ‘case’ for the return to common-law as a pre-requisite to restoration of a culture of liberty. The absence of discussion regarding ways to implement local common-law after the PATCON was stunning. Either the case was flawed, which I’m inclined to disbelieve, or folks would just rather complain about their circumstances than do something to improve them.

You are correct in one regard, the content of the sabre-rattling posts has not evolved towards solutions since well before the days of daily rants by “LT”. So I’ll reluctantly accept your conclusion that nothing has been accomplished.

As much as I enjoy our friendship, I believe I’ve reached the end of my participation in this sand-box.

Best Regards,
Hans

PS -- Sorry for the delay on this comment. I’ve been outside on ladders doing repairs and painting … headed back there again … it’s my form of physical conditioning.

Hans I am also a recipient of Social Security and Medicare but feel no shame for doing so having funds stripped from me without consent for over 50 years of my working life and for far too many of those latter years at the maximum payment possible. The fact that my payment comes from continued theft is not my problem as they system was a lie from the start as those funds were never secured for the supposed use that was intended.

As for refusing payment easing pain on current wage earners and prolonging the life of the system that is not true. The systematic theft from producers will not only continue regardless of your or my participation in a system that we paid into will not only continue, but it will increase, There are none withing the system with the will to slow down the fiscal apocalypse that is coming say nothing about actually attempting to reverse course.

If my acceptance of what by the system’s own rules is due to me for what I paid in helps accelerate the collapse of a corrupted system that continues to steal from everyone who still produces then so it goes. On my little patch of ground here in the mountains of NC I can only continue to becomes as self sufficient as possible knowing that that which cannot go on for ever will stop. When it does those who have never produced and those who have produced but have not prepared will suddenly be without the means to survive.

When that happens not if that happens the thin veil that separates “civilized” man from a “zombie” horde will vanish instantly. There is nothing you nor I can do to change that. The best I can do is try to insure that myself, my family and tribe have the means to better our chances of survival. May God have mercy on us all.